I enjoy sharing with people a story I heard about 40 years ago. We need to internalize this story’s message, let it inspire us to persist in organizing nonviolent grassroots movements for peace, human rights, the climate, and so forth — and share this story with other people.
Here is the story:
Two birds were enjoying a conversation while perched on a branch. One of them mentioned that each individual snowflake weighs practically nothing. A snowflake can land on a branch, and the branch does not move at all. Another snowflake can land without the branch noticing it. And another and another….
This bird said that eventually one snowflake that lands on the branch becomes enough to break the branch completely off from the tree. That snowflake had weighed practically nothing — as had each of the individual snowflakes that had landed before — but the cumulative weight was enough to break the branch off.
The other bird reflected on this story and concluded that although each of us might be a small individual, cumulatively, our “people-power” adds up to a significant weight. If we want to achieve peace, more people need to join together.